Cops, BMC must resolve traffic chowky row

It is inexplicable that a key traffic chowky in south Mumbai has been plunged into darkness for more than two months. The police personnel inside the Nana Chowk police traffic post have been working without electricity thanks to a logjam between them and the civic body. A front page report in this paper detailed that the cops have refused to move to an alternative site provided by the BMC a few metres away from the dilapidated chowky.

Two cabins have been set up at the spot but the cops say these are unsuitable for a number of reasons. As a result, both sides are at loggerheads and a vital traffic junction has a chowky bereft of electricity. When people are forced to work without recourse to lights or fans it is surely going to tell on their efficiency. Our cops also sure to bake inside this chowky once relatively cooler January weather gives way to hotter February and an even more sweltering May. While the BMC may have its reasons in asking the police to move out, what is needed most are talks at a senior level to defuse this row. Seniors need to get cracking and examine the reasons why cops are unwilling to move out. If there are some fears then, these need to be addressed.

There must be no other traffic station in the world where cops work without electricity. Mumbai traffic cops are rightly par excellence when it comes to dealing with the nightmarish traffic in this city. We have seen their superb management during VIP visits, on festivals like Ganesh Chaturthi and Visarjan, they have excelled themselves. It is shocking that this has been the status for the past three months already and it is imperative that efforts towards a breakthrough to this deadlock take on much more urgency.

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